Mahatma Gandh·

A Comparitive St ' l\IREGs and VV

Udy Of B·h ornen·
• ar ·
A.~HMSANIKANDAN· and .Kerala
I · RI LAXM1•
I
/
J dtlction ..
I rro . natnia Gandhi National Rural E Will spend
i rn:i "'~ee scheme (l'v1GNREGS) is one 01 ~P ~ment
111 10 d more mo
emand for e ney Under NREGS .
! (iv?.r~r~t legislation_in !n:t_e~endent India. ~~ hist?ric
1
· ~'i~e- soeial protection 1rntiat1ve which guaran't~ a nght
areas. Whil mplo~ment is high fro assuming that
MGNREG~ a.nalyz1ng the pattern ofm the poor in rural
!:'3sed1 employment to any rural household h es 100 Pradesh R, _11 was observed that exiend1t~re under
£l:ifi 0 ' r·s are willing to do unskilled manwu 1°se adult Pradesh' aiasthan , Madhya Prad s ahtes hke Uttar
were spendin h es and Andhra .
' financial year. Th.is sc h eme came into
/1·: 'i108 a Work in
for . s?heme. It is to be no g uge amount under the -
e\~r)d. tricts across the country initially :n 2 nd F bee in high poverty. Here tw~ed t~at all th~se states have .. :-
...rVJ .s . d d . . ' e ruary
tV" _ Later 1t exten e to all. d1stncts in th addressed: Whether ~~~~ questions_need to be .. ·
1\iJo· OB d A . e country MGNREGS is empowe _P c expend iture under . .
- Aoril 20 onwar s . ccording to M"h· 1
f'f!fi1 ·
•·":nmittee Repo .
rt (2012) " ir Shah
.' over the last six years th are getting benefits fr~~gt~:m~n? Whether women
C ... trna Gandhi National Rural Empl · e NREGS or not? These u . higher expenditure of
11ano MGNREGA) h · oyment the point of view that w~mest1o~s should be seen from
.. rantee Act ( as delivered the la
Gi..:a · rgest upliftment of family only ~will spend money for the
o.11D·
royment programme • ·t
in human history wh· h .
I • IC IS money not only for the .d owever, men can spend
~- tike any other in 1s sea e, architecture and th
r,lf!.. I t d rust. also for alcohol chewi a vancement of a family but
_bottom-up, peop e-cen re , demand-driven
/t;, . b . . • se -
If unproductive a~ well a~g t~ba~co (panparag) and other
c /ecting, rights- ased design 1s new and the MGNREGS should un e~ thy purposes. Therefore,
~:preeedented. Never have in such a short period so women in oor . . provide _mor.e employment for
any crores of the poor people benefited from a this, the N~EG~~m1hes. By_~nv1sagmg a situation like
m
aovernment programme"0 . ne of the main objectives of as a prov1s1on of giving 33.0 per cent
employmen~/persondays to women. This paper
~f the scheme is to alleviate poverty by providing 1 oo ~valuat~s t~e implementation of such provision for
days of employment to rural poor households in a year. omen in B1har and Kerala during the period 2006-07
ln tact. a huge amount of money is being spent for this & 2011-12.
scheme every year. In 2010-11. India's expenditure on
NREGS was estimated to be Rs.40100 crores and over MGNREGS and Women
melast six years, the government has spent a total As per the MGNREGS Guidelines , one-third of
expenditure of over Rs.150000 crores (Shah 2012). persondays generated under the scheme should be
nis paper attempts to evaluate the implamentation of given to women. While analyzing the data of
pro'lision of 33 per cent of persondays for women in persondays generated to women in Bihar and Kerala
Kerala and Bihar between 2006-07 and 2011-12. one can easily realize that Bihar is one of the poorest
states in India and yet is unable to maintain MGNREGS
mpirical Analysis · Guidelines for creating person days for women since
he MGNREGS is purely a poverty alleviation scheme. the inception of the scheme. ln other words, the share
herefore, the relationship between the nurnber of poor of women in persondays generated in Bihar was 17.40
d the expenditure of MGNREGS must be positive. per cent in 2006-07 and 29.0 per cent in 2011-12.
cording to this view, the states like · Uttar Pradesh , · Whereas, Kerala which has a high per capita income
har, ·Madhya Pradesh . West -Bengal Maharashtra and least poverty stricken state shows that the share
~ha _have a larg~ number of po.or people and of women in persondays generated is very high. For
R.OManikandan, Research Associate Centre for W~ge
Employment and Poverty Alleviatio~l(CWEPA),
National Institute
ural Dev I . . , , d b d 500030 ·email· alungal09@gma1.com . . : ..
H Sri L e _opment (NIRO), Rajendranagar, Hy era a - (CAI) National Institute of Rural Development' (NIRO),
endr axmr, e_esearch Assistant, Qentre for Rural lnfrast~ucture I . ·. . . . . ..

anagar, Hyderabad.:500030, email: ssree63@gmail.com ·· · . · ..

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.·~i:·:~g.:
. th. e share of women in persondays generated a large part of p~blic expenditure un~er MGNRE:G ~·~~.:: -; .~·
instance, . · t . gone to women 1n the form of wa~e 1ncorne in th S~~ ~.,;: .;.··
was 65.60 per cent in 2006-07 and 93.0 per cen ~n In other words, NREGS ~as_ provided financial: stq~. ;':'.'.-': . .-
2011 -12 (Graph-1 ). It shows that the M_G~REGS in to women and thus contributing towards better ecur~ ·: ·,, , .'
. Kerala is a women-driven programme. This is because . of living for house.holds. Women _invest rno~~anoar~ ...;:.
the persondays generated under the sch~me f?r women NREGS for education'. health of ch;ldren, repay~ 1roil\ f·. .
.is very high. as compared to all states in India (Table- small loans, micro-saving through. SHGs and buyi~nt O! l:_.
1). . MGNREGS essential food itern g~e . ·. 1
Table 1: Percentage Share of Women .m Person days Generated under c Iear th at women are is. It .is ,.~.
2009 _10 2010-11 2011-12 position and have r~ bette1 1 ·;
States 2006-07 2067-08 2008- 09 their dependenc duced .,:
21 42 17.19 y '
Uttar Pradesh 16.60 14.50 18.10 21.67 : 29 .05 husband~ to _some extend a~ 1·:
30.00 30.04 28 50
· Bihar 17.40 26.60
34.25 33.47 30 _95 are earning income for ·.'II ·
11 f 1arn11 ·
Jharkhand 39.50 27.20 28.50 33.42 33.69 31.89 as we as or Perso Y . • .
West Bengal . 18.30 17.00 26.50 34.81 35.62 36.04 purposes since na1 .
30.60
Haryana 30.60 34.40
37.60
.
36 25 39.34 38.49 intervention of MGNREG~h_ e ;..·,
Orissa 35.60 36.40 44.23 44.40 42.52 the state. Ill ' " ..
43.20 41.70 43.30
Madhya Pradesh 26.29 33.84 43.24 If
37.80 16.30 24.60 While analyzing the dat ~ . . ·,
Punjab 40.28 40.30 43.9 6 B'h 't b aOf ;r
30.50 42.80 36.90
Uttarakhand 49.21 48.63 45. 19 I ar. ' was o served that :'· . .
39.30. 42.00 47.40
Chhatisgarh 47 _55 44 .23 45.64 the persondays generated i \ · . '.
50.20 46.50 42.80
Gujarat
50.60 50.30 ·50.40 36 .79 46.01 45.93 wome~ is less than th~ :,(~" .. 51
Karnataka 39.65 45.88 46.03 prescribed level in th f1 . / ·
· Maharashtra 37.10 40.00 46.20
Andhra Pradesh 54.80 57 .10 58.20 58.10 57.05 57.73 guidelines of MGNREGS · :·: It· F:;
Himachal Pradesh 12.20 30.10 39.00 46.09 48.25 59.71 instance, Bihar has gene;at~ .. · . e~
69.00 67.10 66.89 68.34 69. 28 592.6 lakhs persondays out ' : ·.'. .
Rajasthan 67.10
82.91 82.59 74.70 ' ·., · c<
Tamil Nadu 81.10 82.00 79.70
92 93 of which, on 1y 169.5 lakhs It
65.60 71.40 85.00 88 ·1 9 90 39
Kerala · · persondays was generated !or . ·pr
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ wo1nen in2011-12.He~~ 1 • ·tt ·
Source: http://www. nrega . nic.in/netnrega/h~me .aspx , 0
major things to be noted are: 1) Bihar is a very poor · : · i~.
The important question to note is that the persondays state but the state has generated less number ol ' ·.·
generated for women under MGNREGS in Ke~al~ is very persondays under MGNREGS compared to Kerala; and .
high.-This is because males do not part1c1pate in 2) the persondays generated for women in Bihar is : ._ ...
MGNREGS actively due to low wage rate under the very low compared to Kerala. It is surprising to nole;. ·'. 1
scheme, as compa_red to wage rate in local market in that Bihar has not generat~d su.fficient day.soil · ;_:
Kerala. For instance, on an average an agricultural employment for women. Regarding this, some pert1nenl:L_ ·.
unskilled male labor will get a wage of Rs.450 per day questions that needs to be addressed are: 1) Why B1har' J.. · · •
. while it is Rs.350 for female. But, the skilled agricultural being the poorest state has not generated more days .. _ ·
" male labor will get a wage of Rs.600 per day,i while it of employment under MGNREGS in 201.1-12) Why ,__ ..
-is Rs. 450 for skilled female labor. Naturally, t~,~ _skilled. Bihar is not able to ensure 33.0 per cent of persondays;. \ :. : :
agricultural male and female workers do not' ~ave an to women under MGNREGS since its inception in the' ·:; :.:.
interest to participate under NREGS in ~erala. It does state? This is because there is la:ck of awarenes~ ·, ·'. ,·:.
not mean that they never work ~nder the scheme. They amongst the stakeholders, especially among. \~: '.~
do.work in MGNREGS, especially women work wh~n MGNREGS worker households. The other reasons are .~ ;L
. they do not have any other work. Furthermore, women
·
administrative- and bureaucratic inefficiencies,
· the· .•,. ,,
i ,.,.; /
.who have not worked earlier have interest to work un~er prevalence of feudal relations, insecure a~d tea~/ ;'/· :~.~
, the scheme. The self-help groups (SHGs) are playing dealing with the officials politicians and other 1nt1uen... :·-'; ··:;
. '~~ .crucial role in mobilizing w~men for MGNREGS works members in the village ~r~ some of the factors'~!~~~·: ~~.. ~(:
in the state. Data for 2011 1~ shows that Ke~ala has to t~e poor irr:1plement~t.ion of N~.EGS. The ~ useM~ -~;-~ f~
_ gen~rated_ 631.9 lakhs pers.ondays, out ?.f which, .587 _socio-econom.ic and political con.dit1ons a.re al area~; *R ~,; 5
lakh ~erson~ays generated 1s for women. It shows t~at . . to exacerbate corruptions in this scheme 1n rural ~ :·~.~ 'i.:

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